Byelection has opened up Hell's Gates for Premier

By Quentin Dempster

10 September 2018 — 3:58pm

When Liberal Party Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire was exposed on an ICAC covert surveillance tape discussing developer “dividends” the political fallout was immediate. Maguire may never be convicted of a criminal offence but his consequent resignation from state Parliament, after a 19-year career as the local member, may bring down the Berejiklian Coalition government on March 23 next year.

Wagga Wagga, west of Canberra, is this state’s biggest regional city. The sense of betrayal among electors was palpable, according to independent candidate Dr Joe McGirr, who looks likely to replace Maguire after the exhaustive distribution of preferences this week.

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Maguire’s recorded conversation was in 2016 when every reasonable person could have expected that all MPs and staffers would be motivated by higher ethical standards. Electors are entitled to be angry at the betrayal of trust.

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It is not as if the demand for ethical behaviour has not been self-evident for some years.The ICAC’s exposure of developer corruption in Wollongong, the gaming of coal mining exploration licences in the Hunter Valley and the corruption of powerbroker Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald led to the historic 2011 voter rejection of Labor in power in this state. The ICAC had lessons for the Liberal Party as well, exposing that party and a significant number of its MPs and officials laundering prohibited developer donations. Now in 2018 the Daryl Maguire scandal has indicated to the electorate that wink-wink cynicism and a culture conducive to corruption remains within the body politic.

So in the Wagga Wagga byelection last Saturday out came the baseball bats, the Liberal Party candidate suffering a 30 per cent swing. If McGirr entrenches himself in the affections of the locals over the next seven months, he seems likely to remain the independent member for Wagga Wagga for the foreseeable future.

Independent Dr Joe McGirr.Credit:Nick Moir

Some in the National Party believe it could have saved the seat for the government if there had been a three-cornered contest in Wagga Wagga. Given the vehemence of the retributive vote on Saturday this claim is questionable particularly when the negative impact of the Malcolm Turnbull defenestration in Canberra is added. Simply put, many voters do not like being treated with contempt through displays of self-serving party room power plays, let alone any smelly behaviour by their local member.

On Monday, reeling from the byelection, Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional NSW John Barilaro announced what he claimed was a transformative package of measures: investment attraction fund; skills relocation assistance; an investment "concierge" to offset start-up and operating costs for businesses relocating to the regions. All good stuff, but after almost eight years in Coalition government voters may detect some desperate expediency. Laughably Mr Barilaro also suggested MPs needed to “get real” and abandon their $700 suits for more ordinary attire.

While Premier Gladys Berejiklian has humbly accepted and formally taken full responsibility for the byelection result, the government’s defence of its bearpit majority in the seven months remaining to the state election will be her only focus.

New Prime Minister Scott Morrison will not call a federal election unless he is forced through a successful no confidence motion in the House of Representatives. While the PM may sympathise with Berejiklian he will want to call the next federal election to his the defensive advantage of his government, not the NSW Coalition.

It will take the loss of only six seats to force the NSW Coalition into minority government. The political challenge now facing her may seem to her like Sparta’s King Leonidas facing Xerxes’s hordes. With no timing advantage because of this state’s fixed terms, March 23 is looking like Hell’s Gates.